MAGIC IN THE MUNDANE
July 24, 2023
“Any perception can connect us to reality properly and fully. What we see doesn’t have to be pretty, particularly; we can appreciate anything that exists. There is some principle of magic in everything, some living quality. Something living, something real, is taking place in everything.” (Trungpa 1984)
Gazing out the rain-streaked window of the Langdale ferry, en route to an old friend’s “new” restaurant, I am aware how my mood threatens to take its cues from the gloomy environment around me. To take my mind off the weather, it helps to have been studying Trungpa’s teaching on invoking magic, or the dralas. I confess to having some difficulty understanding what Trungpa means by the dralas, but suspect I’ve come across similar teachings in other traditions, with their own ways of explaining the magic in the mundane. As luck would have it, a recent Daily Om reading offered another way to discover magic, the extraordinary in the ordinary.
“There is a perceptible energetic shift that takes place when we choose to see the good in all. Our perception shapes the lives we lead because the universe adjusts itself almost instantly to our expectations. When we look for negativity, we are bound to come across it in abundance. Conversely, we create positive energy when we endeavor to see the goodness around us."
(Daily Om July 14, 2023)Seeing the goodness around her is what artist Paola Luther does, seemingly effortlessly. I was fascinated by her recent Instagram video showing how to painterly create realistic looking droplets of water on a window, through whose blurry surface one sees a landscape much like the one I’m observing today. What could be more magical than turning a gloomy view into a captivating, atmospheric painting?
Connecting with what Trungpa calls the “fundamental magic of reality” is a commitment I make in order to transcend the fickle shifts in mood and attitude that pervade a setting sun mind. He explains that an attitude of sacredness towards my environment will invite ‘the external dralas’, the “je ne sais quoi” of places we yearn to visit again and again. We might think back to a time when we’ve experienced the ephemeral quality of a warm and welcoming home. A clean and well-ordered space, pops of colour in fabrics and furniture, vases of wildflowers on tables, a candle or a cozy blanket, any little touches that contribute to a sense of comfort and beauty. Try to recall the satisfaction you’ve felt after doing a major spring cleaning. Or having set an attractive table. Or having prepared a nourishing, appetizing meal. All of these small but significant actions invite Trungpa’s magic:
"You may live in a dirt hut with a dirt floor and only one window, but if you regard that space as sacred, if you care for it with your heart and mind, then it will be a palace.”..and “In summary, invoking the external drala principle is connected with organizing your environment so that it becomes sacred space. This begins with the organization of your personal household environment and beyond that it can include much larger environments, such as a city, or even an entire country.”Beyond external drala, we learn about internal drala. The basic idea of invoking internal drala is that you can synchronize, or harmonize your body and your connection to the phenomenal world. Invoking internal drala is, according to Trungpa, a matter of treating your body as a temple, a sacred vessel.
The way to invoke internal drala is through your relationship to you personal habits, paying particular attention to what you think and feel, do and say. Even to how you dress and eat and sleep. All of these behaviors reveal how you see yourself, whether positively or negatively, and from this internal attitude, how you manifest a particular environment or energy around you. The all-too-prevalent habit of criticizing or downgrading oneself leads directly into a setting-sun world of “lack and attack”, a world based on competition and greed, and on satisfying the ‘hungry ghost’ of the ego.
Trungpa’s teachings on the dralas are the antidote to the setting sun’s mantra of need and greed. We make this shift by simply paying closer attention to the mundane details of our day to day existence. By showing respect for ourselves and bringing this reverence and dignity to whatever we do. There’s magic in shifting one’s perspective from that of ‘lack and attack’ to one of cooperation and abundance. As William Hutchison Murray of the Scottish Himalayan expedition wrote:
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.
“All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.”
And that, my friends, is the magic of the dralas.